


But if you never try you'll never know

by yunhaiiro



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Time Travel Fix-It, sort of a time-travel mash-up too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 04:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20002648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunhaiiro/pseuds/yunhaiiro
Summary: What if time-traveling in Endgame worked differently? You don't travel yourself, your conscience goes back in time to wherever you were at that point in your life. You can't bump into a younger version of you, because you've taken over that body, and you won't create a paradox. Or, at least, that's what you think. You can't be sure that whatever you do to change the past won't have a ripple effect. You don't really know what world you'll be creating.Still, Steve has to try.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The time-traveling in this fic is inspired by the one Cable uses in Deadpool 2, mostly the device and the mechanics, and the method that appears in X-Men: Days of Future Past, where it's only your conscience what travels back to your past body. Also, changing things in the past does change the future.
> 
> Title is from Coldplay's "Fix You", thank you to [dfotw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dfotw/pseuds/dfotw) for directing me to the song (and, of course, everything else) and *winks at [marinalj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marinalj/pseuds/marinalj)*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gorgeous poster made by the immensely talented [calcifowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calcifowl/pseuds/calcifowl). Quote from "A Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out", from Crush, by Richard Siken.

Steve stands on the tiny platform, compulsively touching the fastener of the device on his wrist, not quite turning the dials yet. Behind him, Bruce (or Hulk, or… both) is plugging things into place, making sure the power lines will be stable. He’s also typing into his own machine, but the exact purpose of that, Steve does not know. All he knows is he’s not actually setting the time coordinates for him, since that’s what Steve will have to do himself, on his own device.

He’s glad for it, because his actual plan hinges on it.

A part of his mind, though, is feeling guilty about this being the case, because then no one can stop him.

Banner is almost ready. Steve looks up and sees Bucky and Sam standing a few paces away. Sam looks a bit worried. Bucky, though, has a sad, small smile, and is both looking at him and looking past him, into infinity.

Steve swallows and looks back down, finally putting his fingers on the device proper. He turns the gear, slowly.

Banner seems to notice and pipes up from behind his machine.

“We’re not quite ready yet, Captain.”

“I know”, Steve says, now turning the gear faster, staring at the rewinding images blurring in front of him. “I’m just testing it.”

“Oh. Okay.” Banner says, doubtful, but doesn’t say anything else and keeps typing away.

Steve stops, the image he was looking for freeze-framed, but he knows no one but him can see what it is.

“Okay. Now everything is in order. Ready when you are, Captain.”

Steve tears his eyes away from the phantom image, from the past, and takes one last look at Bucky, still wearing the same expression.

His long hair, his beard, his sad eyes, the worry lines that are already getting apparent. Hands deep into his pockets, like he wouldn’t know what to do with them otherwise.

Maybe it’s the last time he sees all of that.

Steve turns the gear the other way, to more recent times. To where he actually has to go, first.

But maybe after that…

“I hope this works”, he says out loud, before pressing the device with his whole palm.

* * *

Once he puts the last Infinity Stone in his proper place and time, Steve stops for a second.

Then he dials back, almost automatically, until that moment.

February. 1945.

* * *

* * *

He miscalculates and comes to his senses a little later than he would have preferred.

“I had him on the ropes”, he hears Bucky say to his left. Steve looks at him.

“I know you did.” The words easily leave his mouth, as if this hadn’t happened a lifetime ago.

They hear a charging sound behind them, but he has a split second advantage this time around. Steve is already turning, grabbing Bucky by his shirt to put him behind his shield with him. It still gets blasted out of his hand, and the bouncing shot opening a gaping hole in the side of the speeding train. But this time he isn’t thrown uselessly against the opposite wall. Now, instead, he turns his body and springs off the wall fast enough that he’s already at Bucky’s side before he has had time to get up, shield in front of him.

But, just like the first time, Bucky takes the shield, jumps to his feet, and starts shooting at the HYDRA man. A second pulse cannon shot charges and fires, again hitting the shield, and sending it flying, along with Bucky.

This time, though, Steve is right there, and lunges forward to grasp at Bucky, _anywhere_ , so he isn’t thrown off.

He manages to catch his wrist with his left hand, Steve’s body flat on the ground and head also out of the train, staring at a terrifying height going by at nauseating speed and a terrified Bucky who’s also trying to grasp at Steve’s hand with the one he already has in an iron clasp. Steve isn’t sure how long it’ll hold.

He sticks his right hand to the side, where he knows, he _prays_ , the shield will be. He holds the side of it as tightly as he can, and turning his body and using momentum and all the strength he can muster, he throws it at the HYDRA man.

He hears, more than sees, the shield hitting its target and he feels the thumping of the ground when the man goes down.

Steve turns again and sticks his head and shoulders further, right hand finally joining the left in clasping Bucky’s wrists.

And Steve’s holding onto them like it’s for his dear life and not the other way around, acutely aware of the fact that the cold wind is trying its best to rip his friend from his hands just like Destiny itself had once.

Steve pushes that out of his mind and concentrates on pulling Bucky up, little by little, crawling on his stomach back into the train. He had thought maybe Bucky would grasp the metal floor of the train once he could, pull himself up, but Bucky’s hands seem to have closed around Steve’s wrists too and he won’t let go. Only when Bucky's whole upper body is already on stable ground does Steve let one of his wrists go, only to grab at the back of his jacket to drag him the rest of the way inside and up. Steve doesn’t stop until he’s sitting up with his back against the opposite wall, and Bucky’s now on his knees in front of him, almost chest to chest.

They’re both breathing heavily (Bucky’s a bit more hitched, which worries Steve, but makes a lot of sense considering the circunstamces), and Bucky specially has his head bent low and staring at the floor like he can’t believe he’s actually in it and safe.

Steve is looking at him (more the top of his head than anything, at this distance) and when the reality of what he has actually done, what he’s _managed to do_ , hits him, he feels tears prickling in his eyes.

Bucky weakly falls against him head-first, his forehead against Steve’s shoulder.

“Oh my God”, is all he says, to Steve’s clavicle.

A wet chuckle gets caught in Steve’s throat.

He puts an arm around Bucky’s back and holds him even closer, feeling his almost imperceptible trembling.

* * *

If Steve is being honest with himself, he doesn’t exactly remember what had happened after the mission the first time. He had been so distraught by Bucky’s (apparent) death, and having to say it out loud at the debriefing (not to mention writing the report), even Colonel Phillips had taken pity on him and had ordered him to take at least a week off and fly back to London.

As it stands now, he’s much more lucid at the debriefing this time around. There are also fewer tears to barely hold in.

Even if, with Bucky right at his side while he speaks, and the weight of the first time’s grief playing as a sick déjà vu in his mind, the difference is not as much as he’d hoped.

He steels himself as he approaches Colonel Phillips after the meeting.

“I wanted to ask for a favor, Colonel.”

“Make it quick”, he snaps, just as Steve remembered all their interactions going.

“You’ve heard what happened and how Barnes has been through a… traumatic experience. Since you have Zola to interrogate, and we won’t be needed in a few days… I wanted to ask for some shore leave. For his peace of mind.”

To his credit, the Colonel doesn’t say no immediately and actually seems to consider it.

“How much?”

“A week would be more than enough.” No need to drag it out more than the first time.

"Did Barnes himself ask for it?’

“No, sir.” Steve holds his inquisitive gaze. "That’s why I called it a favor.’

The Colonel stares at his eyes a few seconds more, still searching, and seems satisfied with whatever he finds.

“Very well. Go wherever you want. Just be back in a week, ready for anything we might have to do.”

“Of course, sir”, Steve says, then salutes, then leaves.

Well, that was going to be the easy part, compared to what came next.

Steve started walking towards the infirmary.

* * *

The second he arrives, the nurse closest to the door looks up and kindly tells him Mr. Barnes had barely allowed them to look at his (minor, she assures him) injuries and had already left for the camp outside.

Steve thanks her, then also leaves to try and find him.

It’s night already, but there are kerosene lamps and small bonfires everywhere, trying to combat both the darkness and the cold, while avoiding electric generators and their racket. There aren’t that many soldiers walking around, but there was still movement. No one really slept, this close to the front.

His memory, somehow, leads him to the set of tents he recognizes as the Commandos’, if only because he can see Morita and Gabe warming themselves by a fire outside one of them.

He goes to greet them, and shakes Gabe’s hand and congratulates him on a successful mission. Gabe smiles and nods, then gestures to one of the tents.

“Your other man of the hour is inside. Said he didn’t want to go drinking today.”

Steve looks at the tent, suddenly recognizing it as his ( _their_ ) own.

“Is that where everyone else is?”

“Yep, you know it. Not actually having done anything doesn’t make Dum Dum any less inclined to drink over a mission done well.”

Steve laughs.

“Aren’t you going?”

Gabe shakes his head.

“No, I don’t think I will, I’m actually kinda tired. Aren’t you?”

Steve starts shrugging, but Morita butts in.

“Super soldier, remember?”

Steve chuckles with a throat rumble. He is feeling tired, but for a lot of other reasons.

“Why aren’t you going, Jim?”

Now it’s Gabe who interrupts them.

“He just feels bad leaving me alone”, he turns and smacks Morita in the knee. “And I appreciate it. Thanks, buddy.”

“Anytime”, Morita answers. He turns back to Steve and also points to the tent behind the man. “You checking up on him? Gabe told me what happened.”

Steve takes a breath.

“Yeah. See you tomorrow, guys.”

“Good night, Captain.”

* * *

Steve parts the fabric of the tent that functions as the door, peering inside before stepping in. At the far end there’s a lit candle lamp, but the dwindling light it’s giving off tells Steve it will die soon. Still, his enhanced sight gets used to the darkness in a few seconds, and he shifts his gaze to the cot to his right, and the unshaped lump laying there. He finally steps inside and lets the tent flap close behind him.

At first he thinks Bucky is already asleep. His mind races to tell him that maybe it’s for the best, because he’s feeling tired too, and maybe they can talk tomorrow, or never, really, it’s not like they _have to_ …

The lump moves and turns and one bright eye looks up at him.

“Hey.”

Steve wonders distantly if Bucky’s always had such sensitive hearing, or if the war is doing a number on his senses and nerves, or if he’s still wary after what had happened in the train.

“Hey”, Steve answers, as softly as he can. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. You can go back to sleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep”, Bucky says, sitting up and rubbing his face, not really fooling anyone.

He must’ve felt Steve’s skeptical stare, because he stops and looks up at him defiantly.

“What?”

Steve keeps his eyebrow arched for a beat, then deflates with a sigh. He motions to Bucky’s side, muttering a “can I?” that Bucky answers by scooting over, taking the blanket he had been covered with and putting it around his shoulders.

Steve sits and waits in silence for a bit.

“Are you okay?”, he finally asks, and he meant to keep looking ahead but can’t help but steal a glance sideways.

He knows Bucky looks tired and haggard, for this stage of his life, but to Steve, he just looks so _young_.

Unaware of what’s going on in Steve’s head, Bucky closes his eyes and snorts without any joy.

“For fuck’s sake, Steve.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Bucky locks his jaw and looks squarely at him, daring him to do the same, and when Steve does, he notices with an internal start just how close they are.

After staring hard at him, Bucky closes his eyes again and turns his head, letting it drop following a long sigh.

“We’ve almost died other times already. It’s never fun. But I’m okay.”

Steve also drops his gaze, in time to see Bucky lightly rubbing his wrist with his other hand.

Without thinking, Steve’s hands shoot up to touch it too, but he manages to stop right before. Now it’s Bucky who looks at him with an arched eyebrow.

Nevertheless, Bucky pulls his sleeves up and presents them to the light.

Steve sees the bruises already blooming on the skin of both of his wrists.

Bucky chuckles without humor and just says “Captain America”.

Steve holds up his hands and does take his arms into them this time, which makes Bucky freeze.

“I’m so sorry”, Steve says.

He’s cradling them, feeling the tenderness of the skin, holding them with all the care he can muster to compensate from all the hurt he had done.

Bucky lets out a sigh that ends in a nervous chuckle.

“You saved my life.” He says. He’s not thanking him, not exactly: it’s just a statement of fact. It feels like there should be a second part to it. Steve waits.

It finally comes out of Bucky, as if he’s had to dig it out.

“I would’ve done the same for you.”

Steve bows his head on top of Bucky’s arms, still holding onto them, and breaks.

He can feel the first tear slide down his nose and land on one of the bruises.

He remembers the first time, roughly the same hour, when he sat crying alone in his now forever empty tent, and hopes these phantom memories stop at some point because he already has enough emotions to deal with.

When the first sob wracks him, Bucky gently pulls his arms away from under Steve, who lets him go. Steve himself sits back up, looking up and trying to keep it together. Bucky puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Are _you_ okay?”

Steve refuses to look down and keeps sniffing. He’s wracking his brain for an explanation that both makes sense and won’t incriminate him.

“You’re gonna make fun of me.”

Bucky laughs, caught off-guard.

“What? Come on. You’re giving me fifth-grade flashbacks here. Who took your lunch money?”

Steve also manages to laugh at that. He’s calmed down somewhat.

“I had… I had a nightmare yesterday, before the mission.”

Bucky still has a small smile, but his face is turning serious again.

“You can imagine what it was.”

“Are you saying you saw the future or something?”

Steve shakes his head, aware of the irony.

“No, no, it was just… Bad.”

“Must’ve been, to make Captain America cry.”

Steve sniffs for one last time and looks at Bucky again, mock-upset.

“I knew you’d make fun of me.”

Bucky holds both palms up to placate him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Steve rubs his face with his wrist to clean it up.

He sighs, serious again. He looks at Bucky.

“I was so scared today, Buck. I had a very bad feeling about it. I thought…”

Bucky looks away.

“… I’m just glad you’re here. And. Okay. Ish.”, Steve finishes lamely.

Bucky looks back at him, head slightly tilted to one side and disarming smile.

“Yeah, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

After a second of hesitation, he puts one hand on top of one of Steve’s, on the latter’s lap.

“And likewise. I’m glad you’re here.”

Steve looks at their hands, then up at Bucky. The candle is almost out, but he can still see its light dancing on Bucky’s profile, making his eyes gleam, that smile still hanging on his lips.

Bucky starts to turn away, probably to tell Steve to let him actually sleep already.

Steve’s head starts screaming at him.

_Do it. Do this now. Do this before he dies in some other way you can’t prevent, one that doesn’t give you a second chance decades later that you still waste. He deserves to know._

Bucky must’ve sensed something, because he stops and looks at him, face an inch closer.

“Steve?”

_DO IT_

Not for the first time today, Steve lunges at Bucky.

This time, it’s to kiss him.

* * *

Bucky doesn’t duck, nor tries to stop him, and he also doesn’t pull away once Steve is actually kissing him.

But he’s not reciprocating either, and after a few seconds of neither of them really moving ( _how_ , Steve thinks, _can I still be so bad at this?_ ), Bucky raises his hands to Steve’s face and gently pushes his face away.

Steve is about to launch into a tirade of sorrys, but something in Bucky’s face kills the words before he can’t even begin to utter them.

Bucky looks tired, and wary, but he licks his lips as if he isn’t aware he’s doing it, and once he starts to talk he keeps stealing glances down to Steve’s own mouth.

“Can we… Can we talk about this tomorrow? I can’t… I don’t think I can deal with this today too.”

Steve pulls back entirely, Bucky’s hands falling from his face, and swallows.

“Of course.”

Steve gets up and walks the two steps that separate their cots, his back to Bucky, feeling more self-conscious that he had ever felt in his entire life.

He suddenly realizes he’s still in his jacket and uniform and boots, and he’s gonna have to take them off before going to sleep, and it’s going to make the situation even more awkward.

He sits in the cot to at least get the boots off his feet, a safe enough gesture, and he sees that Bucky’s laid down again, now with his back against him, and covered himself with the blanket so Steve can only see the back of his head.

He sighs, very quietly, then quickly gets ready for sleeping. Once he’s also laid down in his own cot, he steals another glance in Bucky’s direction. He hasn’t moved an inch.

Steve lays on his back, looking up at the roof of the tent.

The candle’s light finally dies down.

* * *

Steve wakes up the next morning, still staring at the tent’s roof, and his first thought is that he’s still asleep, dreaming. He’s dreamt of this before, obviously. Of the war. Of _this_ tent. Of Bucky.

He looks to the side and finds an empty cot.

Maybe this is one of the nightmares he’s also had.

He sits up. Gets up, bare feet on the ground. He walks over, the same two steps he remembers.

It can’t be _that_ nightmare. He can see that the cot hasn’t been empty for long. And it’s still warm.

Slowly, he starts to accept that maybe, _maybe_ , this is actually happening.

He looks at his left wrist, where he still has the time-travelling device. Useless now, though, since he has no more charges and the guy who made them probably hasn’t been born yet.

He slips it off and tosses it into an open rucksack by the foot of the bed. It’s not like he would go back, even if he could still use it.

He doesn’t know how the situation he had put in motion last night, perhaps foolishly, will develop. He doesn’t know how the conversation with Bucky will go down.

But he knows that, whatever happens, he won’t regret having saved Bucky from that fall.

He steps out of the tent to find Colonel Phillips outside, talking to the rest of the team, including Bucky.

“Well, Sleeping Beauty has finally graced us with his presence”, he says as a form of greeting. “I was just telling your guys about your week off. In London.”

Steve looks confused.

“London, sir? What for?”

“Agent Carter has to travel there and it seemed like a waste of a plane ride to send her alone. Get your things, it takes off in an hour.”

Everyone else salutes and says a “Yes, sir!” before Steve can finish processing his words. He does the same the moment he catches himself, but he’s still reeling. Fate seemed to be very stubborn with certain things and refused to have them changed.

And so, they get on the plane bound for London, and Steve never gets a chance to talk to Bucky. He seems fine enough, laughing along with everyone else and being normal towards Steve, except for the times when Steve catches him looking sideways at him with an undecipherable expression. He does remember Bucky doing that a lot back then since he became Captain America, so he tries not to dwell on it too much. He doesn’t succeed.

* * *

They’ve been given a safe house, rundown but perfectly functional, and half of the team has been either sleeping or playing cards with each other, apparently content with that.

Once night comes, though, they start trickling out, heading for the few clubs that still opened even during London’s blackout nights. Bucky is actually the first one to leave, not a word about where, and Steve watches him disappear out the door with what he hopes is a subtle gesture.

He doesn’t last long, though, conceding his hand (he was bad at poker, anyway) and getting up to also leave. At least the fresh air would do him good, he reasons.

Steve lets his feet take him where they will and he ends up at that café, the one they had been in what had been so long ago for him, just before getting his team. It’s been bombed down now, most of the structure completely collapsed. He knows because he had been here last time too, digging through the rubble to get a bottle of alcohol that would do nothing for him.

He steps inside. Somehow, this is where Bucky had ended up too. Steve finds it funny, how time is a flat circle, but doesn’t voice his amusement in any way.

Bucky is leaning against the bar, looking around, the only intact table in front of him. Steve has made some noise when entering, but Bucky hasn’t turned to look at him. But he knows he’s there.

(The last thing Steve wants is sneak up on his friend, not when he could still be frazzled.)

( _Listen to yourself_ , Steve hears in his head. _And you thought he was a worrywart about you_.)

Bucky doesn’t seem to acknowledge his presence. Steve gives him a wide berth, searching for the bottle of alcohol he knows is there. He gathers it and two glasses, then puts everything down on the table. He knows Bucky has been looking at him through all of this, not moving.

Steve sits down with a sigh. He had come here the first time to ineffectively get drunk and very effectively cry his eyes out. Then Peggy had come, at his lowest, and hadn’t looked at him with any sort of pity. Steve had been too numb to see it for what it was, why she had come, caught up in revenge, all he had seemed to have left.

_I won’t stop until all of HYDRA is either dead or captured_

He remembers saying.

Peggy had tried to help him come to terms with Bucky’s death. She had been kind, but didn’t sugar-coat her words. Steve hadn’t believed her when she said it had been Bucky’s choice to die for him. He couldn’t bear to carry that too.

But she had been… There. And Steve had thought, _maybe…_

While he’s been thinking this, Bucky has sat down too and poured himself a drink.

Bucky cuts straight to the chase.

“What is your deal, Steve? I thought you and agent Carter had a thing.”

Steve is taken aback for a second, but then he shrugs.

“We were… I don’t know. Not a thing yet.”

“She’s _smitten_ with you. I’ve seen it. And you-”, he adds, tone turning accusatory without him meaning to. “You carry her photograph around on that compass. Seemed like a dead giveaway to me.”

Steve falls silent, thinking how he can express that yes, at the time, he had been in love with Peggy, and it had seemed so clear to him. Finally a woman who gave him the time of day, someone who was amazing. Someone he could settle down with, maybe have kids, lead the perfect life at her side.

But Destiny had laughed in his face once more, and separated them much like it had done with him and Bucky, and it had taken almost 70 years for Steve to realize that Peggy had seemed like the only option left because he had lost Bucky first.

“Peggy and I _could_ have been a thing”, Steve concedes out loud. He pauses.

“But I love you.”

There’s a sharp _crack_ and a rain of glass where Bucky’s had been a second before.

“Goddamnit”, Bucky curses, getting up from the chair with liquor dripping down his clothes. Steve has gotten halfway up too, instinctively looking for any damage, but Bucky waves at him to sit back down. “I’m fine.”

He says that, but turns around and stalks back to the bar, taking a new glass but staying there, his back to Steve.

“You can’t just…” He says after a while. “You can’t just spring that on me now.”

Steve can’t help the exasperated chuckle that escapes him.

“Spring it on you?” He lowers his voice. “Bucky, how many times do you think I’ve wanted to do what I did last night?”

Bucky turns around, without a word, and steps back to the table only to grab the bottle and bring it back to the bar with him, pouring more alcohol into the glass until it almost spill out. He drinks half of it in one big gulp, then the rest in two more.

Steve doesn’t relent.

“How many times have _you_ wanted to?”

Bucky slams the glass down with enough force that Steve is amazed it isn’t pulverized like the last one.

“What are you accusing me of?”

“Accusing?” Steve says, incredulous. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I just want to know if we’re on the same page on this. Or have been.” He falters. “If it’s no longer the case, that would be fine.”

_That would most definitely not be fine._

Bucky is shaking his head like he’s just trying to erase everything in it.

“I can’t do this.”

“You’ve said that before.”

Bucky stops and looks at him.

“And it’s still true”, he says, eyes hardening. He looks away, like he’s debating with himself, then speaks up again.

“You know why I never wanted you to actually join the Army and come here?”

“Your hero complex?”

“You’re one to fucking talk”, Bucky says, almost laughing before he catches himself. He keeps talking. “No. This is why. I never thought I’d come back from this.”

Steve had had his suspicions, but it still goes through his heart like a sharp needle.

“Bucky…”

“I thought I was going to die in a trench, thousands of miles from home. Hopefully doing something useful, but who even knows.” His tone gets more agitated the more he talks. “And they would’ve sent a letter to my mom, and my sister, and they would have told you, and maybe you would’ve gotten whatever remains they could’ve scraped of me together a month later. But you would have been safe, alive, and away from all of this.”

Steve gets up again, slowly. Bucky has wound up his fists and is now looking at the ground.

“But you’re here now and either one of us could be the one to get sent home in a shoebox.”

Steve gets a step closer to Bucky. He doesn’t sound angry anymore. His voice is getting lower.

“And I can’t do this knowing that could be you.”

Steve stops right before he reaches him.

Bucky raises his head, slowly, to look at him.

"If we, somehow, make it- if we survive…

_Survive_ , Steve notices. _Not win_.

“Then we can talk about this. Until then, I’m…”

His gaze goes downwards again and he starts walking away, brushing ever so slightly against Steve.

“I’m sorry.”

Bucky leaves.

Steve stays in place, looking at the almost empty liquor bottle that, once again, won’t be of any use to him.

He still takes it and downs the rest of it in one go.

He’s glad Peggy doesn’t drop by this time around.

* * *

Afterwards, Steve steps out of the ruined café, but, instead of going back to the safe house, decides to take a walk first.

Everyone seems to be following the blackout religiously, the only source of light in the streets the military spotlights aimed at the sky, which erase all the stars around them. The new moon is slowly filling again, but it can’t compete.

There’s a heavy silence that makes Steve’s footsteps echo ominously.

Every third corner he takes, Steve is greeted by a building turned into rubble. There’s dust and ashes clinging to them, beams and metallic structures collapsed and twisted but still standing, like the skeleton of a great beast left to die.

A cold breeze passes through him and scatters the ash into the air right in front of him.

_Steve?_

_Half of Bucky’s left arm had already turned into dust before Steve could look at him. His rifle clattered to the ground when his right arm followed suit. He tried to step forward and he stumbled, feet no longer there. Before he even touched the ground, he had turned into dust, some of it blowing away and the rest slowly falling in circles and creating a slightly darker patch atop the soil of Wakanda._

_Steve got closer, his footsteps heavy. He kneeled, putting one palm on the ground. The dust clung to his hand and dyed it gray. He looked at it._

The older Steve, now impossibly younger and back in the past before any of it had happened, snaps back to his senses.

He’s still reeling from the memory. He turns around and starts walking back towards the safe house, now with renewed purpose.

That Bucky seems to not reciprocate him hurts. A lot. Steve had thought he had it right, had thought he had been the coward who never pulled up and brought it up to Bucky himself, when they where reunited in the future.

Maybe what had happened the first time around, and in the future, was the reason Bucky had ever loved him that way.

(He had seen it. He was sure of it. In Wakanda, before the battle with Thanos, in a past that somehow seemed even further away than the one he was now living in.)

Maybe that was the only way. Now that Steve has saved him, now that none of that—

(The Winter Soldier, their fights, Bucky saving him and remembering him somehow, Steve’s desperate search for Bucky for two years, choosing Bucky over everything and everyone, Bucky choosing to go under rather than hurt someone else against his will, Bucky in Wakanda, healthy, happy, _free_ , before they had to be roped into yet another fight. The Snap, losing him again)

—will come to pass, hopefully, maybe Steve has cursed himself to a life of loving Bucky from afar, holding all the memories from another life that will never exist. He’s created a world in which Bucky will never love him back.

And, he finds, he’s okay with it.

He might not have known what exactly he would be walking into, when he made the decision to come back to the train. He certainly didn’t know there would be an price for it. But he thinks on it, and even through the sting of rejection, he’s sure it’s worth it.

_I don’t know if I’m worth all of this, Steve_ , Bucky had said to him once.

Steve is determined to prove, even to someone who is just a ghost in his memory, that he was wrong. He is worth it. All of that and more.

A life of Bucky living, happy, content? Where they are still friends, above everything? Nothing else matters.

That’s the future Steve will fight for, with every fiber of his being.

He looks up and finds himself already in front of the safe house, having walked all the way back without realizing.

He knocks on the door and after a while it opens, Bucky on the other side. Steve gets whiplash once again at his appearance, reminiscence of his other self too fresh on his mind.

It must have been apparent in his face, because a shadow falls over Bucky’s. Without a word, he steps back into the house, leaving the door open. Steve follows, mentally slapping himself for making things even more awkward.

Most of the guys are back by now, some reading or playing cards ( _again_ ) by candlelight. Steve gets waves of welcome before everyone goes back to what they’re doing.

He realizes he might’ve packed a book himself and goes to fetch it from his bag. He chuckles quietly when he sees it’s a WWI history book he remembers knowing from front to cover, back before he could get an ebook reader and never run out of new things to read through. Back to… Now, actually.

He goes back to the living room and burrows in a corner near a candle, trying to get into the book to avoid thinking about anything else.

It works, for a while.

* * *

The moment they get back to the front, things start happening exactly the way Steve remembers, again.

The meeting after Zola confesses takes place at exactly the same time, only with all of the Commandos present.

(Steve hasn’t forgotten about Zola. He knows he’ll get offered a position in SHIELD once it forms. Steve intends to make sure that never happens this time.)

“How much time we got?”

“According to my new best friend, under 24 hours.”

Steve winces internally. He hasn’t gone to see Zola himself because he doesn’t trust he won’t do anything stupid (but very much deserved on the Nazi scientist’s part).

The conversation keeps on.

“So, what are we supposed to do? I mean, it’s not like we can just knock on the front door”, Morita says.

“Why not?”, Steve asks, as they all turn to look at him.

“That’s exactly what we’re gonna do.”

* * *

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as they say.

Preparation for the mission is still as hectic as any “we need to save the world in 24 hours” one is (sadly Steve’s gotten used to those), but amidst it all, Steve makes sure to pull Howard Stark aside and make him promise he’ll be on standby on the radio for the whole of it.

“Well, sure, Rogers. I wasn’t gonna sit this one out either, you know.”

“Yes, but I get the feeling we’ll need you at some point.”

Bucky is talking to Gabe right behind them, making it seem like he’s not listening in.

“I’ll clear my schedule for you, then”, Howard jokes.

“Thank you. It’s just in case we might need your expertise or even a last-second extraction.” Steve says, trying not to insist any more but acutely aware of how important this is.

“Try not to get your beacon shot this time if that’s the case.”

Steve looks towards Bucky for a fraction of a second.

“I’ll try my best.”

* * *

They get hauled to the Alps and Steve spends the whole ride bouncing his leg up and down, unable to stop for more than five seconds at a time.

The wait is killing him. He’s never been one to show so much nervousness and the rest of the team is starting to look at him funny.

He starts picking at a dirt stain on his uniform trousers.

He never would have thought knowing what was going to happen would actually be worse. He had thought he knew the stakes the first time. He hadn’t.

Now he knows he’s walking into the situation that functionally got him killed. And he’s dragging Bucky along with him.

It’s been a while, and he’s out of practice, but while his mind is going through all the events that will unfold shortly and what he intends to do about it, on a loop, he starts sneaking prayers in between.

* * *

Steve spends half the mission as if he’s living a fever dream, the combination of the constant déjà vu hammering at his head and the whiplash when he turns and sees Bucky there, like it’s a doctored photograph you are certain it’s fake, almost too much to handle.

There’s a moment, though, when he’s running down a corridor after Schmidt, that he comes face to face with a HYDRA man he didn’t expect and he almost gets a hole through his stomach for his carelessness. He manages to avoid it, instinctively putting up the shield, but he gets the wind knocked out of him for a few seconds.

Then he sees Bucky come in, also running at full speed, and charging towards the man, gripping his shirt, and tugging hard enough that he sends him flying towards the wall.

Both Bucky and Steve watch the man slide down the wall to end up slumped on the floor, unconscious.

Steve grabs Bucky’s arm and he turns to look at him.

“We’ll deal with that later.”

And Steve starts running down the corridor again.

Bucky stares at the goon one second more.

“Yeah”, Bucky finally says, following him.

* * *

Steve and Bucky jump on Schmidt’s car, with the Colonel and Peggy in it. Thanks to this, they’re almost caught up to the Valkyrie, but not close enough. Steve gestures to Bucky that they will have to jump for it.

“Keep it steady!”, Steve shouts at Phillips, while getting up. Bucky does the same.

“Wait!”, Peggy shouts.

_Oh no_ , Steve thinks.

With hindsight, he can say that that kiss, even when welcomed, was really ill-timed.

“Go get him.”

Steve can’t help but look at Phillips and then Bucky with deer-in-the-headlights eyes.

Phillips looks up at him from the driver seat.

“I’m not kissing you!”

Bucky seems to be experiencing ten different emotions at the same time.

“Neither will I until we pull this off”, Steve hears him say.

They jump.

* * *

The fight against Schmidt seems a lot shorter this time, strength of numbers on their side.

Steve also makes sure _not_ to throw him against the controls and put the plane on a nosedive.

Listening to his ravings is still the worst, though.

“You could have the power of the gods! Yet you wear a flag on your chest and think you fight a battle of nations! I have seen the future, Captain! There are no flags!”

Steve remembers what he said the first time. This one, though, he settles for what he’s really thinking.

“Fuck you.”

He throws his shield at Schmidt, who crashes into the Tesseract container.

Bucky, who was standing on that side, quickly puts Schmidt on a chokehold, the man trying to break free and shouting.

“What have you done?! No!”

He tries to grasp the Tesseract anyways. Bucky can’t seem to hold him in place. Steve notices in time.

“Let him go!”, he shouts, running towards them, and Bucky does as he’s told without hesitation.

Steve tackles Bucky away from Schmidt, for good measure.

The Red Skull holds up the glowing cube, as wisps flow out of it and fly around the room. A portal opens above him, to what Steve knows is Vormir. In a matter of seconds, the Tesseract seems to burn through Schmidt’s hands, then his whole body, until he gets send up, to fulfill his cosmic destiny. The Tesseract’s light dims until it falls to the floor, then tears a hole through the metal of the plane to once again get lost in the ocean.

Bucky stares at the place where Schmidt had been. Then turns to look at Steve.

“Did you know that was going to happen?”

“No”, Steve lies, getting up and holding out a hand for Bucky to take. “But I had a bad feeling about it.”

He pulls Bucky up.

“Thank God for that, then. And. Well. Thank you.”

Steve shakes his head, walking towards the plane’s controls without missing a beat. He looks down at the screen and their trajectory. They have more time than he had when he was last here, but not by much.

He hopes it’ll be enough.

He puts a hand up to his earpiece.

“Howard, tell me you’re there.”

Bucky has joined him and is looking at the controls too, brow furrowed.

“I’m here, Captain. What do you need?”

Steve motions for Bucky to sit down.

“We’re gonna need some _very_ quick flight lessons.”

Bucky looks confused.

“What? Shouldn’t you…?”

“Bucky, you’re gonna figure this out better than me. You got this.”

Bucky sits, reluctant, and holds the earpiece Steve hands him like it’ll burn his skin.

“I still think…”

“Buck.” Steve says, again. “You got this.”

Bucky locks his jaw and puts the earpiece in, turning to the controls with a focused look.

“Stark?”

Steve can’t hear the other side of the conversation anymore, but he stands there, a hand gripping the back of the chair and watching Bucky start touching dials and switches, hesitant at first but more confident each time.

The autopilot light goes off. The plane starts to go down. Bucky grips the steering wheel and pulls it up.

“The landing won’t be nice”, he says out loud. Steve doesn’t know if he’s talking to Howard or him.

“If we make it, that’s good enough for me”, he answers nonetheless.

* * *

The landing _isn’t_ nice, to be fair, but Steve is also fairly sure it’s better than his own crash. Not like he remembers it, of course.

Bucky hands him his earpiece back with a relieved long sigh and they make their way out of the plane.

They jump down of the small wreck and set foot on the ice ( _what are the odds_ , Steve thinks), and they don’t even get to admire the view before the surface starts to crack under them.

Steve grasps Bucky’s hand instinctively.

“Run”, he says.

The plane starts to groan and the ice cracks faster.

They run.

They run until they no longer can, Steve still holding onto Bucky’s hand, and once they look behind them to make sure it’s safe, they both collapse to the floor, Steve on his back, Bucky first to his knees then on his face.

“Goddamnit”, says Steve between heaves.

Bucky doesn’t even have any breath left to curse.

Steve’s earpiece crackles and he hears Peggy’s voice, a hint of panic.

“Captain, are you okay? Steve? Are you and Barnes okay?”

Steve takes another big gulp of air and puts a hand to his ear.

“Yes, we’re okay. We landed on frozen land and it collapsed under the plane, but we could get away fast enough.”

Bucky laughs in a wheeze, face still on the floor.

“Can you tell me your location?”

Steve looks around and can’t pinpoint any landmark.

“… No, but we can try to find a town nearby. I’ll radio in… 2 hours or so, if we haven’t found anything, and we can think what we do next.”

“Alright, Captain. Well try to find out your position on our end too. I’ll inform the rescue team so they’re ready.”

“Thank you”, Steve says, still full on military mode. “You should tell Stark, too, we’ll need a search and recovery team for both the Tesseract and the Valkyrie.”

“Consider it done. Good job, Captain. And tell Barnes the same.”

“I will. Thank you.”

There’s a second of silence on the radio.

“I’m glad you’re both okay. Truly.” She lets out a small sigh. “Over and out.”

Steve stays lying down for a while more, then sits up. He looks over at Bucky, who is now also getting up, pushing himself off the ground.

“How the fuck did we do all that”, Bucky says, now sitting on his knees, looking behind him at the far-off last remains of the plane, being swallowed by the ice.

“I don’t know”, Steve answers honestly. “I didn’t think we would make it.”

Bucky turns to look at him, indecipherable expression on his face.

“You think that’s it? We made it?”

Steve looks off into the distance too.

“I think… I think we will be okay.”

He’s not talking about the world, or America. He’s just talking about the two of them.

Bucky gets up, dusting off his trousers, and he steps closer to Steve, one hand outstretched. Steve takes it and with his help gets up too.

Bucky pulls a little too hard, making Steve stumble into him (which could have knocked them both over had Bucky miscalculated), putting his arms around Steve’s waist.

“A promise is a promise.”

And he kisses him.

Steve makes a noise of surprise he regrets the second he hears himself and it makes Bucky chuckle into the kiss too. But that doesn’t stop him.

Steve pulls back after a while, smiling like an idiot, but still feeling like he has to make sure.

“Is that your answer?”, he calls back.

Bucky tilts his head, staring at his lips, and makes a non-commital sound.

“Let’s just see how things go.”

_Good enough for me._

* * *

They trek around for a while to try to find some sort of civilization. So far, they’ve only seen birds.

“You know”, Bucky speaks up, and Steve turns to look at him.

“You’ve been having a lot of _luck_ lately.”

Steve blinks.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?”

Bucky has a smirk, but it’s the one he puts on before he launches into a serious conversation.

“Sorry, you didn’t call it luck. What was it? You get ‘feelings’?”

Steve freezes. He should’ve known he wouldn’t be able to fool Bucky for long, but he had hoped for more time.

“I guess you could… Call it luck…”, he says, lamely, trying for obfuscation.

Bucky stares at him, no longer smiling, one eyebrow raised.

“Cut the bullshit, Rogers. What is going on?”

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

Bucky points behind them over his shoulder, where the Valkyrie had been.

“I think we’re way past that.”

Steve stays silent, though it takes him all his willpower to do so. And he knows this is far from a long-term solution.

“Are you _actually_ from the future?”, Bucky asks, dropping his voice, between disbelief and suspicion.

More like a one-second solution.

“… Yes.”

“What the fuck, Steve.”

Steve pulls up a hand to his face and guffaws without meaning to.

“It can’t be that far into the future, you look exactly the same.”

“It is quite far, actually. But it wouldn’t show. It’s complicated.” Steve shrugs, but he knows that probably won’t stop the barrage of questions.

“Can you go back?”

“No”, he drops his hand and looks at Bucky again. “And I don’t want to.”

Bucky stares at him with half-lidded eyes.

“Was it that bad?”

Steve thinks back on it and gives an honest answer, at least his most honest one at this point.

“No. But I’d rather be here.”

Bucky licks his lips, still staring at him, but he stops asking. For a while they keep walking in silence.

“Do you know what’s happening to me, then?”

Steve sighs. From his perspective, that could mean many things, but he knows which one Bucky is asking about. Steve has been thinking about it too.

“I think so. When you were captured… I think what Zola did to you”, Bucky tenses his jaw and Steve makes one more mental note to get Zola what he deserves", that was his version of the supersoldier serum.”

“But it’s been so long since then.”

“I think it’s either slower or… Triggered by something specific. I’m sorry, I actually don’t know.”

“If it’s triggered by stress it would make sense that it’s starting now”, Bucky says, half joking, half deadly serious.

A beat passes.

“I fell off that train, didn’t I? Where you came from.”

Steve swallows, the image flashing before his eyes.

“… Yes.”

Bucky slowly gets closer to Steve’s side and takes his hand.

“From what it’s worth… I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.”

Steve is staring up ahead, trying very hard not to break again.

“I don’t know. I just… I still had to fix it.”

Bucky lightly tugs on his hand until Steve looks at him.

Bucky’s face is serious and he won’t break eye contact.

“Thank you.”

* * *

An hour later, while they’re still walking, Steve’s earpiece crackles back to life.

“Captain?”

“Agent Carter”, Steve greets her. “Still haven’t found anything on our end.”

“Good thing the technicians here have, then. We’re sending a plane to fetch you and Sergeant Barnes around the location they’ve gathered, so please sit tight and try not to do any heroics in the meantime.”

* * *

The war is won.

They go home.

Steve is now a national hero. An _alive_ one, even, which means he still has to do some PR stuff he would rather not.

He’s not mad about being a comic book character, though. Even if they’ve been… _creative_ with how much of reality they put in there.

(They’ve changed Bucky into a kid side-kick. Steve would be mad about that, if it didn’t amuse the real Bucky so much.

“Guess they don’t want anyone to upstage _the_ Captain America”, he said when he found out, smirking.)

Steve stands on the podium after being introduced by the President and stoically deals with the flashes and the journalist’s screams.

“Captain! Captain!”

“Yes?”

“I think the question on everyone’s mind is: what’s next for Captain America? So you have any plans?”

“Well, we just came back from a war”, he answers candidly. “My plans for now are resting and try to get as back to normal as I can…”

“Anything in particular?”

“Just try to have a life again, as most people.”

Another journalist cuts in.

“Is there anyone special in the life of Captain America?”

Steve plasters a polite smile on his face.

“I’m not here to talk about my personal life. I just want some peace and quiet for now.”

“Is it true you and the female agent Carter could be a thing in the future?”

“As I said”, Steve over-enunciates. “I won’t talk about my personal life. Any other questions?”

Half of the journalists’ hands go up while there are even more camera flashes.

Bucky watches the interview on the small TV with waning interest.

“That excuse is gonna wear thin very quickly, you know”, he calls at Steve, who’s trying to make something edible in the kitchenette behind Bucky. “’I want peace and quiet, I won't talk about my personal life’.”

“Yeah, well”, Steve says. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Steve puts the plates of food down on the table. Bucky’s eyes linger a second longer on Steve’s appearance on TV, then he turns around.

“I called Peggy”, Steve says the second he sits down.

“Hm? And what did agent Carter say?”

“Well, I heard she was thinking of opening up a new intelligence agency within the government.” Bucky raises an eyebrow. Steve smiles at him, knowingly. “I thought maybe we could help.”

Bucky raises the other eyebrow.

“After what you did to Zola, she’ll still let you?”

Steve smiles a very sinister smile.

“No one knows it was me. And he’ll live.”

“As he should?”

“Sure. But he won’t be recruited by the USA, and he won’t get to use taxpayers money to upload his evil conscience to a thousand computers. I'll make sure of that.”

Bucky shakes his head.

“I've gotta tell you, some of the things you’ve told me about the future…”

Steve looks down. Bucky is the only one he will ever tell about this. But he still worries that because he did so, it will upset the course of time against them. Throw them curve balls they won’t see coming.

“Some won’t happen anymore”, he says. No more Winter Soldier. At least, not the one Bucky was. HYDRA will certainly keep trying, though. “And others we can prevent. We can be ready.”

“It’s… a lot. A lot of responsibility, too.”

Steve sighs deeply. He wants to take it one day at a time.

“At least I don’t have to do it alone.”

He takes Bucky’s hand. Bucky shakes his head.

“You’re a sap.”

He says, as he brings Steve’s knuckles up to his lips.


	2. Alternate ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or maybe this is what happened.

Steve watches as Bucky gets more and more agitated flipping switches at the Valkyrie’s controls. They both look down at the screen and Steve sees a very familiar image.

“Steve, this is going for New York”, Bucky says, horrified.

Steve’s stomach drops. So he couldn’t pull this off, after all, not even with Bucky here.

“What do we do?!”, Bucky shouts at him.

“I think we need to go down.”

Bucky turns sharply to look at him, desperation in his eyes. His sight drifts for a moment, realizing Steve is right. He turns back to the controls, and after a beat, he angles the steering wheel down.

This time Howard Stark’s the one left shouting into the radio while the signal crackles into static and then dies.

* * *

The man in the padded jacket is trying to make himself heard over the cold wind.

“How long have you been on site?”

The other man also has to shout.

“Since this morning. A Russian oil team called it in about 18 hours ago.”

“How come nobody spotted it before?”

The search team leader shrugs as much as he can inside his own jacket.

“It’s really not that surprising. This landscape’s changing all the time. You got any ideas what this thing is exactly?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably a weather balloon”, he says, as if he’d be there if he really believed that.

The search team leader calls his bullshit very quickly.

“I don’t think so.”

* * *

The SHIELD team enters, not quite gracefully, into the aircraft. As they look around, trying to find anything that explains what it is and how it ended up there, Agent Coulson notices something.

“My God”, he says out loud.

He brings a hand up to his earpiece.

“Base, give me a line to the Colonel.”

“It’s 3 AM, sir”, is the answer on the other side.

“I don’t care what time it is. These ones have waited long enough.”

He stands over the block of ice as if he’s guarding a sacred thing.

It might as well be. In it, he can see the faces of both Steve Rogers, Captain America himself, and Sergeant James Barnes. They’re both lying on their side, facing each other, and there’s a strange calm to their posture, as if they had thought that if this was how they were gonna go, at least they were going together.

* * *

Bucky slowly wakes up to the sound of the radio, the announcer raving on about a baseball match. He turns on his side.

Steve is there too, also coming to his senses. They seem to be in some sort of hospital room.

Bucky listens more intently to the radio. He can see Steve doing the same. Steve sighs, as if he’s remembering something.

A woman dressed as a nurse enters the room, startling Bucky. Both him and Steve sit up on their beds. She smiles brightly at them.

“Good morning”, she says, then checks her watch. “Or should I say afternoon?”

Steve sighs again.

“Lady, don’t bother.”

The smile stays put on her face.

“I’m sorry?”

Bucky speaks up too, pointing at the radio.

“That baseball game is from 1941, in May. We went to see it at the stadium—”

Steve interrupts him, fed up.

“Look. I know this isn’t the 1940’s. Tell Fury to come down here himself and cut the bullshit for once. I could do without his theatrics.”

Both the nurse and Bucky stare at him, the woman with a slightly horrified expression.

“Of… course”, she says finally, leaving the room and closing the door behind her.

Steve falls down back on the bed. Bucky is still staring at him.

“You wanna tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Steve is staring at the ceiling of what he knows is just a pre-fabricated plaque in the middle of SHIELD headquarters.

He turns to look at Bucky, who looks bewildered, but is there, whole, alive, _himself_.

So even if Steve has to do it all over again…

At least he has Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are endlessly appreciated.


End file.
